Just Breathe
by ShadowSpires
Summary: The events of Rising Malevolence go a bit differently. General Koon really, truly believes that someone will come for them. Wolffe is a pragmatic vode, he knows the likelihood is slim, but is willing to try to believe. He trusts his General, is willing to believe for him, to give his last remaining men hope. Sinker knows better.


The Triumphant is in pieces around them, The other two cruisers that make up the rest of the 104th are as well, shattered scraps drifting across the viewport.

Brothers drifting across their viewport.

It's too late, far too late for any of them, but it is the least they can do to watch them, to say their names if they know them, to speed them on their way.

The harsh red light, reflecting off the planet, bathes it all in blood.

When they finally got their communications working, the life support restarted, there wasn't a single other pod responding. They were the only survivors of their entire Battalion.

Two troopers, their Commander, and their General.

General Koon really, truly believes that someone will come for them.

Wolffe is a pragmatic vode, he knows the likelihood is slim, but is willing to try to believe. He trusts his General, is willing to believe for him, to give his last remaining men hope.

Sinker knows better.

So does Boost, despite trying to put a good face on it.

They pass the time quietly, waiting for rescue. They have already done every single thing any of them can think of, and a few they made up on the spot, to increase their chances. Now, the General is meditating, deeply, attention far away from the pod, trying to use the Force to contact someone. They don't have enough power to get them to the next nearest habitable planet, and if rescue is coming, they will look for them here.

They've used the first life support recharge already.

Clones are not designed for limited resources like this.

They were engineered to be the best, physically, their bodies crafted to get the most out of everything, but it means they burn through it quickly. Properly hydrated, they can last about four days without water, but only twice that without food before their bodies start eating themselves up to maintain the high levels of performance.

They absorb nearly every scrap of oxygen they inhale with every breath.

It's useful, powers their bodies, their hearts and muscles and lungs.

Here on this ship, it's a death sentence. Not any more of one than their life is. No more of one than they were created for, really. Just a bit quicker than any of them might have preferred.

Boost and Sinker have extra oxygen rations in their suits. The plan, when they switched over to their secondary life support charge, was to save them, too use them as a last resort, to extend the time all of them have, before rescue comes for them.

If Wolffe is generally ruthlessly pragmatic, Sinker knows how to be simply ruthless. It makes him a good sergeant, makes them a good team. They've been together since they were all on Kamino.

He would have liked the chance to say goodbye.

He would have liked the chance to tell his Commander, his friend, how much he loved him, how proud he had been to serve with him, how much it meant to him, to be one of the Wolfpack, to be one of Wolffe's.

He doesn't. He just slides his helmet on, watches Boost do the same. Wolffe turns to them, curious, but Sinker casually signs the need for some privacy, and Wolffe nods, assuming they want a chance to talk over their coms without having to filter it for command, or disturb their Jedi. He goes back to watching General Koon with quiet faith.

Sinker only has that much faith in one person, and he's going to do everything he can to save him.

When Wolffe has turned away from him, he quickly toggles the switch that will seal the suit. Intended to protect them for a limited time out in the black, their armor seals, hooking up their internal oxygen systems. Only, Sinker has disabled his. There will be no additional air.

He feels Boost grab his hand. They exchange no words, simply curl around each other, holding on as best they can through armor.

His breath comes quick, panic and fear despite his very best efforts, despite all his training, and the lifelong knowledge that death is the only outcome of his life. He lets it. It will make the end quicker, less chance of being discovered, less chance of Wolffe deciding to be noble, less chance of their Jedi figuring it out and trying to save him. There is no saving all of them. Sinker has accepted that. But maybe, maybe, if their General is right - and Sinker so, so wants him to be right - by doing this they will buy their Commander enough time.

Maybe whoever comes to rescue their General - their Jedi, who cares too much about them to understand that others _don't_ \- will come in time to save Wolffe too. Sinker can be content with that.

It's a little like going to sleep, in the end. Him and Boost, curled up together like they have on endless missions, finding the ways the armor fits together best, like comfort isn't the least of their concerns right now.

The edges fade, blackness takes them, easy and calm, and nothing like the blaze of blasterfire and glory he always thought would end him.

At least they are together.

Wolffe's grief when he discovers what they have done is _shattering_. He gathers them to him, limp and unresponsive, popping the seals on their armor with desperate fingers, too late.

Wolffe is on his knees, cradling his packmates in his arms. Howls of fury and grief echo in the little pod. But no further. Trapped like he is trapped, in the bubble of air his men died to preserve for him.

The storm of grief pulls Plo from his deep meditation. He had been trying to reach _anyone_ in range, trying for some speck of hope to give his men. There is nothing, and he was so deep he did not feel the passing of two more, so close.

He has utterly failed them.

He has no words of comfort for Wolffe, only shared grief. Kel-Dor do not cry, but he keens his grief along with his Commander, his friend.

They were _children_ for all they were soldiers, and they were failed. By the Jedi. By the Republic.

Wolffe lays Boost and Sinker in each other's arms again, together in death as they were so often in life. He curls around them for long minutes, so still and silent that Plo has to rest a hand on his back to ensure he is still breathing. That he has not willed himself to join them.

He has not. He can not. The rest of his pack is dead. They died for him. He does not need the explanation. Not once he sees the disconnected airlines. He will not waste that sacrifice.

It is just him and his General.

Hours pass.

He uses the tanks. Tears start again as he does so, breath low and slow, preserving the air for as long as possible, breathing breaths his men could have taken.

He breathes, because he can do nothing else.

No one comes.

Plo cradles Wolffe's head in his lap, fingers running through his hair, the Commander grown weak and sleepy as the air thins, pressing into contact and comfort in the cold confines of the pod.

"They'll come for you, General" Wolffe smiles weakly up at him. His faith is still somehow unbroken, and Plo doesn't know how to _do_ this. Doesn't know how to handle the cracks spiderwebbing through him every time Wolffe's breath shortens, every minute he continues to look at him like he can do _anything,_ when his entire battalion is dead, destroyed before him, lives winking out around them. When he lost Sinker and Boost because they did not believe that anyone would come for them, and they were _right._

When he can't even save the life right in front of him, more precious than his own, in ways Plo can't describe, has never experienced in all his years.

Is this the danger of Attachment he's always been warned about? Somehow he always thought it would feel…different. Less like the slow build of affection, of love, for his Commander. Less like the numb crackling along all of his lines and barriers that is more a sound than a feeling. Less like his heart was too full to be contained, too full of love for the being breathing out his last on his lap, Plo's claws running gently through thick dark hair.

Less like regret for the distance he maintained, that this is the first time he's gotten to feel this.

Is the danger in the having, or the losing? In the losing after joy, or the losing after having denied yourself that joy?

Plo is distantly sure that it's the latter, but he can't quite stir up the will to care about anything but the weight of Wolffe's head in his lap, the feel of his skin, still warm under his.

Not warm for long. Death is too close now, and somehow, the knowledge that someday he will meet Wolffe again in the Force is not the comfort it should be.

It is close.

He pulls Wolffe tighter, up into his arms, Wolffe tucks his face into the crook of his neck, seeking comfort. Plo strokes down his back, humming the ancient Kel-Dor hymns of joy and coming spring.

Light and happiness, for as long as he can provide them, a gentle goodbye.

Later, will be time for mourning.

Later will be time for many things.

He can hold off whatever is stirring in his soul long enough to bid his Commander farewell as himself, not as whatever is coming.

Wolffe goes limp against him, unconsciousness claiming him with a sigh.

The hymn shatters in Plo's throat, choked and ragged and he holds Wolffe tighter.

Now the mourning comes.

Wolffe's breathing slows, the feathering of breath against his neck growing shallower.

It stops.

Plo reaches up.

He slides off his mask to press his cheek to Wolffe's icy one. All the life stolen from his vivid friend.

He has no words.

He simply breathes deep of the oxygen free air — safe for him at last, stripped of the oxygen that is so harmful to him by the breath of his men.

He breathes in the last breath of his Commander, and breaks.

It may be hours, it may days, before he manages to release his Commander, lifting him gently, though he is no longer there to feel it. He lays Wolffe out next to Sinker and Boost, together with his Pack again in death.

He leans over him, presses his forehead and nose against his Commander's, the traditional greeting between the clones he has never been able to fully participate in. Always with the barrier of the mask between them, and more: always held back by his own inhibitions and training.

He had missed so much. And for what? For a Code that would make automatons of them all? For a Republic that used them without thought, threw them into war, threw their younglings into war. That was killing them all. For an Order who did not care enough to fight for them, to find them? That did not fight for the clones, who had no choice?

He had not fought for them. Not as hard as he could have.

His men, his children, all gone, and he had never told them how much he loved them.

He feels them coming.

Another he loves and has never told.

Little 'Soka.

Bright lights shine through the window of the escape pod, Skywalker's ship.

Rescue, but too late.

Too late for _any_ of them, really. Plo Koon's body may still be living, but the Jedi is dead.

There is too little light in the universe, to make up for this.

There will never be enough Light in Plo's soul again, to even begin.


End file.
